On recall option, CEC Quraishi bats for politicians

Chief election commissioner SY Quraishi described electoral reforms issues - right to reject and right to recall - as "ticklish affair". Chetan Chauhan reports. Right to recall: Take poll | Mixed results in recall cases

Updated on: Aug 31, 2011, 14:24:29 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Chief election commissioner SY Quraishi described electoral reforms issues - right to reject and right to recall - as "ticklish affair". He called for a national debate before a final decision is taken.

Social activist Anna Hazare on Sunday had declared that his next big campaign will be to seek right to recall of elected representatives and right to reject the listed candidates, while ending his 12-day fast on the Lokpal Bill.

"We have not thought about it seriously. It is going to be a ticklish affair," Quraishi told HT. But, in the same vein, he highlighted that electoral reforms were high on the government's agenda, and a blueprint has been prepared through seven nationwide consultations.

Former law minister Veerappa Moily visited election commission twice to discuss electoral reforms, and this is proof enough of the government's seriousness. Quraishi hoped that the Parliament now would consider these reforms as consultations have showed there is lot of interest in them.

But, rather than right to recall, the CEC said a better option was to create awareness among voters about franchise and ensure maximum voter turnout to get "best possible" candidates in legislative bodies.

"They (voters) should choose their representatives carefully so that there is no need for recall," he said.

The right to recall has not been on the commission's agenda as it has never been proposed seriously. Quraishi said that if the government accepts its proposal to debar criminals from contesting, then there will be no need for right to recall.

On the right to reject on which the commission has deliberated, he had some basic questions such as what will happen if majority of people reject all candidates? Will there be another poll? How many elections shall we have?.

"People in India already suffer from election fatigue because of so many elections," he said.

In India, there are different set of elections for panchayati raj bodies, legislative assemblies and Lok Sabha, to be held at least once in five years.

On Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption, Quraishi batted for the government, saying that Jantar Mantar or Ramlila Ground cannot be competitor against Parliament.

Recall experience in India

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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